THE HISTORY OF 
of grease swimming upon it full half an inch thick. However, they commend- 
ed this dish extremely ; though I believe the praises they gave it were more 
owing to their good stomach than to their good taste. The line was extended 
six miles and three hundred poles, and in that distance crossed Crooked creek 
at least eight times more. We were forced to scuffle through a thicket about 
two miles in breadth, planted with locusts and hickory saplings, as close as 
they could stand together. Amongst these there was hardly a tree of tolera- 
ble growth within view. It was a dead plane of several miles extent, and 
very fertile soil. Beyond that the woods were open for about three miles, but 
mountainous. All the rest of our day’s journey was pestered with bushes 
and grape vines, in the thickest of which we were obliged to take up our 
quarters, near one of the branches of Crooked creek. This night it was the 
men’s good fortune to fare very sumptuously. The Indian had killed two 
large bears, the fattest of which he had taken napping. One of the people 
too shot a rackoon, which is also of the dog kind, and as big as a small fox, 
though its legs are shorter, and when fat has a much higher relish than either 
mutton or kid. It is naturally not carnivorous, but very fond of Indian corn 
and persimmons. The fat of this animal is reckoned very good to assuage 
swellings and infl^mations. Some old maids are at the trouble of breeding 
them up tame, for me pleasure of seeing them play over as many humorous 
tricks as a monkey. It climbs up small trees, like a bear, by embracing the 
bodies of them. Till this night we had accustomed ourselves to go to bed 
in our night-gowns, believing we should thereby be better secured from the 
cold : but upon trial found we lay much warmer by stripping to our shirts, 
and spreading our gowns over us. A true woodsman, if he have no more 
than a single blanket, constantly pulls all off, and, lying on one part of it, 
draws the other over him, believing it much more refreshing to lie so, than in 
his clothes ; and if he find himself not warm enough, shifts his lodging to 
leeward of the fire, in which situation the smoke will drive over him, and 
effectually correct the cold dews, that would otherwise descend upon his 
person, perhaps to his great damage. 
25th. The air clearing up this morning, we were again agreeably sur- 
prised with a full prospect of the mountains. They discovered themselves 
both to the north and south of us, on either side, not distant above ten miles, 
according to our best computation. We could now see those to the north 
rise in four distinct ledges, one above another, but those to the south formed 
only a single ledge, and that broken and interrupted in many places ; or ra- 
ther they were only single mountains detached from each other. One of the 
southern mountains was so vastly high, it seemed to hide its head in the 
clouds, and the west end of it terminated in a horrible precipice, that we 
called the Despairing Lover’s Leap. The next to it, towards the east, was 
lower, except at one end, where it heaved itself up in the form of a vast 
stack of chimneys. The course of the northern mountains seemed to tend 
west-south-west, and those to the southward very near west. We could 
descry other mountains ahead of us, exactly in the course of the line, though 
at a much greater distance. In this point of view, the ledges on the right 
and left both seemed to close, and form a natural amphitheatre. Thus it 
was our fortune to be wedged in betwixt these two ranges of mountains, in- 
somuch that if our line had run ten miles on either side, it had butted before 
this day either upon one or the other, both of them now stretching away 
plainly to the eastward of us. It had rained a little in the night, which dis- 
. persed the smoke and -opened this romantic scene to us all at once, though it 
was again hid from our eyes as we moved forwards, by the rough woods we 
had the misfortune to be engaged vrith. The bushes were so thick for near 
-four miles together, that they tore the deer skins to pieces that guarded the 
